Deeplinks Blog posts about Innovation

In the week leading up the two-year anniversary of the SOPA blackout protests, EFF and others are talking about key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day, we'll take on a different piece, exploring what’s at stake and and what we need to do to make sure the law promotes creativity and innovation. We've put together a page where you can read and endorse the principles yourself. Let's send a message to DC, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Brussels, and wherever else folks are making new copyright rules: We're from the Internet, and we're here to help.

As the year draws to a close, EFF is looking back at the major trends influencing digital rights in 2013 and discussing where we are in the fight for free expression, innovation, fair use, and privacy. Click here to read other blog posts in this series.

We've been saying for years that copyright law is broken. 2013 saw the beginning of what could be a meaningful effort to fix it – if Internet users pay attention and stay involved.

Public data that has been generated or commissioned by government bodies should always be available to the public without restrictions on its use by copyright or other laws. That's the spirit behind excluding works authored by the federal government from copyright restrictions, and the strong legal precedent that the law itself cannot be copyrighted. EFF has now joined a growing list of organizations and individuals supporting a set of best practices for federal government agencies that wish to give a clear green light to the reuse of their data.

The bipartisan Innovation Act is the best bill yet when it comes to fighting patent trolls. This post is the fourth of a series explaining the bill’s various provisions. While the Innovation Act won't fix every problem with the patent system, it includes a powerful set of proposed reforms that—taken together—will significantly reduce the threat of abusive patent trolls.